In Winters Heart There Is Peace
by Aeshdan
Summary: In the aftermath of her parents' death, Elsa of Arendelle falls deep into despair, and turns her magic against herself. But the cold cannot kill her, and her attempt instead brings forth something entirely unexpected.
1. In The Cold Youll Find Freedom From Pain

"Do you wanna build a snowman?" There was a long pause.

 _Yes, I do,_ sang Elsa's heart, but not a word passed her lips. Her eyes gradually closed, blocking out the sight of her room coated in frost. Blocking out the snowflakes that hung suspended in the air. Blocking out everything except her pain and her grief.

 _Oh, Anna, I want you. I want you so badly I can hardly bear to keep this door shut. But I can't open it. I hurt you once, and I can't do that again. That would be the only thing that could hurt worse than this, if I froze your heart like the trolls warned me._

 _I wish I could freeze my own heart. Then maybe it would stop hurting so much._

Elsa blinked her eyes open, that last thought flashing through her mind. Shakily, she extended her left hand before her, fingers curved as if holding the hilt of an invisible dagger. And for the first time in years, she deliberately reached for the magic.

Blue-white light swirled in her grasp, shaping itself into the form of a slender dagger. It had no substance barely more than a whisper against her fingers, but it radiated a chill that would freeze any flesh but her own.

For a long moment, Elsa considered the icy dagger.

 _This could kill you,_ a voice seemed to whisper. _The cold may not hurt you, but this? This is magic. Who knows what it might do?_

 _So what?_ retorted another voice. _The succession's provided for. If I die, Anna takes the throne. She'd be a better queen than I any day. How can I be a queen if I can't even go out and meet my people without bringing a snowstorm down on them?_

The dagger-shape dissolved into sparkles of magic, then reformed reversed.

 _And if I die, I'll see Mother and Father again._

Elsa closed her eyes, and drove the dagger of magic into her heart.

* * *

 _They're dead._

 _They're dead, and I'm alone._

 _So very alone._

 _What am I going to do?_

Anna lay on her bed, weeping. She had no idea how long she'd been there. It just hurt, it hurt so much. Ten years and more she'd lived with the gates locked, with the halls empty, and people only coming in when they had to to keep the kingdom running. Ten years Elsa, with whom she'd once been so close, had hidden behind that closed door. And now her mom and dad, the only people who she had been able to talk or interact with, were gone.

There was a knock on the door. Anna twitched on her bed.

"Anna?" a clear voice said.

 _Elsa?_ thought Anna, bewildered. Then her sister's voice rang out again, singing seven words that instantly grabbed Anna's attention.

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

Anna exploded off her bed and ran to the door, throwing it open. Elsa stood on the other side.

Anna's sister was clad in a black dress, one that echoed Anna's own, but there was an odd smile on her lips.

"Elsa?" blurted out Anna.

"Hello, Anna," said Elsa.

* * *

Elsa flicked her fingers. A spark of magic shot forward and exploded into a shower of snow. Another twitch of her fingers, and the snow swirled up and formed into a crude snowman.

Anna stared in amazement, and Elsa permitted herself another small smile. It seemed almost absurd how much trouble she'd had controlling her powers, when it was now so simple. Without fear or anger to twist the magic, she no more had to worry about controlling it than she had to worry about controlling her own arm.

It was a bizzare experience. She still remembered what it felt like to feel pain, and sorrow, and fear, and love, though she suspected that her memories no longer conveyed the true depth of those feelings. Yet she couldn't actually _feel_ any of those things. It made for an odd dissonance.

Elsa had already decided not to tell Anna what she had done. She might not feel anything towards her sister anymore, but love was more than feelings. It would hurt Anna to know what Elsa had done to herself, therefore Anna would not know. Hopefully. Elsa wasn't actually sure how well she'd be able to hide her new state from Anna. Of course, ten years alone and isolated, culminating in the death of her parents, could cover a lot of personality changes.

"Elsa…" said Anna, voice tinged with awe, "What… how… when did you learn how to do that?"

"This is why Mother and Father closed the gates, Anna," said Elsa. She felt a twinge of… not sorrow, she could no longer feel sorrow, but perhaps regret. "This is why I hid behind my door for all those years, and why the palace was empty. When I first discovered I had these powers, Mother and Father did the only thing they could. They closed the gates and emptied the palace, to keep everyone safe from me. It was supposed to be only temporary, until I learned better control, but it didn't work out that way. My fear warped the magic, made it harder to control. And of course, the more trouble I had controlling the magic, the more I feared it. It fed back on itself."

"So what changed?" asked Anna, running her finger along the streak of white in her hair.

Elsa closed her eyes. "After Mother and Father's death, I was too sad to be scared," she said. "And without fear to interfere with my control, all that practice made it easy to control the magic. And of course, once I'd proven to myself that I _could_ control the magic I wasn't afraid of it anymore."

 _True, after a fashion,_ she thought. _If it had not been for Mother and Father's deaths, I would never have been desperate enough to try what I did._

Anna stared at the snowman. "So… what happens now?" she asked. "Do we open the gates? I suppose this is a bit hypocritical, but I don't think I want the gates open right now. Not while I'm still…" she trailed off and turned to Elsa.

Elsa opened her arms and Anna stepped into her embrace. The sisters held each other close, and Elsa felt Anna's tears hot against her shoulder.

"I understand, Anna," she whispered in her sister's ear. "And I can't open the gates just now anyway. Father ordered them shut, and it will take a Queen to revoke a King's command. You'll have your time to mourn. And I promise you, Anna, that the very day I'm crowned Queen, I will open up the gates, and I won't close them again."

"And until then," she whispered, allowing her voice to soften, "At least we have each other."

"At least we have each other," whispered Anna back.


	2. Frozen Hearts

The docks smelt of fish and tar, with a faint tang of salt. Though this was only the second set of docks she'd set foot on in her lifetime, Rapunzel was already learning that these were the odors shared by all docks.

 _Arendelle,_ she thought as the sailors began to haul in the mooring ropes. _A new country, new experiences, new relatives._

 _I still can't believe I have_ relatives _. All those years with only Gothel for company, I would have been happy just to have a real family. And now not only do I have a real mother and father, not only do I have a betrothed, but I have cousins, and uncles and aunts and Lord alone knows what else._

And those cousins were standing on the docks, waiting for them. The one in the green dress, who was practically bouncing up and down with excitement, had to be Anna. She actually looked like Rapunzel's _real_ mother, though the fiery shades that the sunlight only hinted at in Queen Arianna's locks were brought to their full blaze in Anna's braids. Behind her stood Elsa, elegant in pale blue and with the snow-white hair that Rapunzel knew marked her ice magic, just as the sun's gift had once stained her own hair gold.

 _I wonder if her hair goes back to normal when it's cut, the way mine did?_ Rapunzel wondered. _Probably not, they'd have discovered it by now._

Suddenly, something occurred to Rapunzel. "Eugene," she whispered. "Did Mom ever say whether Anna and Elsa know that she knows about Elsa's magic? I can't remember."

"How would I know?" he whispered back. "I wasn't there when she told you, remember? The only reason I even know about the magic is that _you_ told me on the way up here. Though I could probably have guessed anyway," he added, gesturing in Elsa's direction.

With a thump, the gangplank settled onto the dock. Rapunzel took a deep breath and, with the ease of far too much practice, pushed away her worries. It wasn't that hard. Today, she got to see a new country and meet actual relatives, and the worst she'd have to worry about was a minor _faux pas_. Compared to her childhood, this would be nothing.

* * *

As soon as Rapunzel hugged her, Elsa knew that she was in incalculable danger.

She really should have seen this coming. She _knew_ that Rapunzel had been touched by magic, just as she had been. She _knew_ what Rapunzel's touch could do. But she had foolishly believed the stories she had heard, believed that calling Eugene Fitzherbert back from the brink of death had depleted Rapunzel's magic.

The stories were wrong. With Rapunzel's hair cut, the sun magic had been buried deep within her, its channel to the surface dammed. But it was still there, capable of being called forth under the right circumstances. The power of light, of life, of _healing_. Quite possibly the only thing left in the world that could truly hurt Elsa.

If she had still possessed the capacity to do so, Elsa would have panicked. She might have run away screaming or struck out at the arms that enfolded her. Even as she was, she could not prevent a wince as Rapunzel's embrace, and the light and love it carried, began to force warmth into her frozen heart and brought back the tiniest shadow of the agonies waiting for her.

Rapunzel let Elsa go, looking embarrassed. "Sorry," she said, "I should have remembered that ten years and more locked away can make a girl a bit hug-shy."

Elsa took a shaky breath and pressed one hand to her chest, using the motion to disguise the flash of her magic as she renewed the permafrost of her soul. "It's ok," she said with her best fake smile. "One gets used to unexpected hugs living in the same house as Anna."

As if to demonstrate Elsa's point, Anna swept Rapunzel and Eugene into a hug.

"It's so good to see you!" she exclaimed.

"I'm afraid I need to go," said Elsa. "That's the Duke of Wesselton's ship putting into dock over there, and I think I may need to greet him in person."

And with that, she turned and walked off down the dock, her mind racing.

 _Anyone else, I could just freeze their heart. I did it to the rabbits and sheep and even the bear without any trouble, and a human can't be_ that _different. But I can't touch Rapunzel, not with her heart filled with sunlight. And Eugene's probably got a bit of light in him too, at least enough to keep my powers at bay. I've no idea where I could lay my hands on poison in a hurry, and steel would be far too risky…_

 _Wait. What am I_ thinking _? Rapunzel and Eugene are innocent, they have no idea what they're doing to me. And Rapunzel's my_ cousin _!_

Elsa didn't know how to describe what it was she was experiencing. There was no horror, no disgust, only the detached realization that there was something very wrong about the direction in which her thoughts had gone. For the first time in months, she wondered just how much that dagger of ice had changed her.

* * *

It was not precisely accurate, Elsa mused, to say that the Duke of Wesselton danced _badly_. That seemed to somehow both overstate and understate the case.

Bad dancing was shuffling around or stepping on your partner's feet or not being able to keep to the beat. The Duke of Wesselton actually danced very well, in that he was active and clearly knew how to move. The only problem was that he had either completely forgotten or was deliberately ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be dancing _with_ Elsa.

Still, it wasn't as though Elsa could feel annoyed, or embarrassed, or frustrated. Humoring the Duke's antics put him in a good mood, while making him look a fool and her look polite and generous to the rest of the guests. And all it cost her was a bit of time.

With a sharp chord, the current song came to a halt, and the Duke touched down once again at Elsa's side.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Your Majesty," said the Duke. "When your parents locked the gates and hid you away, there were so many rumors. Some said you were sick, or mad, some that you'd been caught kissing someone unsuitable. Why, some even claimed you were a sorceress!" The Duke quirked his eyebrows in a clear attempt to look knowing, though it more made him look as though he had something in his eye.

Elsa quirked her lips in a false smile, and let out a little laugh. "That's a new one, Your Grace," she remarked lightly, betraying no sign of her concern.

Technically, of course, she _wasn't_ a sorceress. Her powers were her own, blood and bone, not gotten by bargaining with faeries or demons. The fact that she could walk on consecrated ground and even take Mass without it having any impact on her powers proved that those same powers were lawful in the eyes of the Lord.

But there were those who didn't appreciate that distinction, and she suspected the Duke of Wesselton to be one such. Better not to reveal that there was anything unusual about her. The Duke of Wesselton might be borderline senile, but his state was still one of the biggest purchasers of Arendelle's gems and metals, and it was in part Wesselton grain and meat that had allowed Arendelle's population to reach its current size.

"Care for another dance, Your Majesty?" the Duke asked, his manor shifting from a bad attempt at "knowing" to a bad attempt at "seductive" with mercurial speed.

"I've already given you two dances, Your Grace!" said Elsa with a false giggle. "Any more would be _quite_ inappropriate. Besides, I haven't had a chance to sample the delights of the buffet table."

She made a swift getaway before the Duke could come up with anything else to say and glanced around the room.

 _Huh,_ she thought, noting the lack of copper-colored hair. _Wonder where Anna's got to?_

* * *

"Will you marry me?"

Anna's first thought was an immediate desire to shout out "Yes!". Her second thought was an almost equally immediate desire to say "No!". With an effort of will, she squelched both desires and tried to think.

 _You can't just marry a man you only met today,_ a voice seemed to whisper in her ear. It sounded a lot like Elsa.

 _You can if it's True Love_ , retorted a second voice.

 _What would you know about True Love?_ sneered the first voice.

 _You know True Love when you feel it, all the stories agree on that,_ the second voice insisted.

 _And what about your cousin and her fiancé?_ the first voice changed its tack. _Eugene was willing to die for Rapunzel, and Rapunzel to face worse than death for Eugene. And they still took their time before getting engaged. What's the rush?_

 _Well…_ the second voice began, before stopping dead in its tracks.

 _There really is no rush, is there?_ said a third voice in tones of wonder.

"Anna?" Hans said, and she suddenly realized that he'd been kneeling in front of her this whole time while she debated with herself. And at the same moment, she realized that she'd made up her mind.

"Not yet, Hans," she said with a smile.

"Not… yet?" Hans said, looking confused.

"Look, Hans," she said with a laugh, "I'm not going to marry a man I only just met today."

"But… but this is True Love! Can't you feel it?" asked Hans.

"Of course I can!" said Anna with a laugh. "But just because we love each other doesn't mean we need to rush things."

Hans looked so bewildered Anna couldn't help but laugh again. "Don't you get it, Hans?" she said, savoring each word like rich chocolate, confidence building even as she spoke. "The gates are _open_ , and Elsa's not going to close them again. We can afford to take our time. And I want to take my time with this. I want picnics and balls and dinner parties and everything else. I want to be _courted,_ Hans, courted as a princess should be courted.

"So my answer is 'not yet'. I know we don't have an ambassador from the Southern Isles in the castle, so you can stay on here. You can get to know me, and I can get to know you. And in… say six months, at Christmas, if you still feel the same about me you can ask me again, and I'll say yes or no."

Hans stared at her for a long moment more, and then shook his head and let out an exasperated chuckle that so reminded Anna of her father when she had done something even more reckless than usual that she had to turn away to hide the sudden welling-up of tears in her eyes.

"Very well, Anna," said Hans, rising to his feet. "In that case, I think we had better return to the ballroom. If I'm to court you, then I think another dance or two would be a good place to start."

* * *

Elsa leaned against the wall, a plate with a few cheese cubes in her hand. She wasn't actually eating anything. She hadn't felt hungry since she had plunged that knife into her heart, and while she still _could_ eat, food had lost much of its savor. The plate simply provided a convenient barrier, a way to explain what she was doing standing off to the side instead of mingling with the crowd. She wasn't sure how much of it was ten years and more alone and how much was… what she now was... but she needed a few moments to recover from the whirlwind of dances and conversation.

Suddenly, there was a commotion as Anna came pushing through the crowd, dragging an unfamiliar figure in her wake. After a moment, Elsa recognized him.

 _Right, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. Haven't seen him in the last hour or two, come to think of it. Have he and Anna been together this whole time?_

"Elsa!" said Anna with a giggle. "I… we…" She blushed, then started over again. "Hans just asked me to marry him."

Elsa was not shocked, or startled, for she could not be. But the words did catch her attention, and for the first time that night she focused her full attention on Hans. What she sensed surprised her. Ever since she froze her heart, normal people had felt slightly… _off_. There was too much passion, too much _warmth_ in the human heart for her to feel entirely comfortable with it. But Hans… something about him felt _familiar_.

Anna kept on talking. "Don't worry, Elsa, I didn't say yes. But I didn't say no either. I told him he could have six months to court me, and then I'd tell him yes or no at Christmas. Anyhoo, the point is, Hans can't be courting me all the time, so he'll need something to do here. Can he be the ambassador for the Southern Isles? I know we don't have one yet."

For a moment, Elsa had wondered whether Hans might have powers of his own. But after a moment's contemplation, she realized that that wasn't it.

 _His heart is frozen, but not the way mine is, not by magic. His is_ naturally _that way. I… in so many ways, I_ am _a monster, an abomination out of the stories, the evil witch-queen with a heart of ice. But… I felt love, once. I still remember what it was like. I know the difference between right and wrong, and I still try to walk in the path of Christ. Hans… what is he? What might he do, without even the memories of love to guide him?_

"Can we talk, Prince Hans?" she said out loud. "In _private_ ," she added, with a meaningful look at Anna.

For just a fraction of a second, she saw cold calculation in Hans's eyes, and then the jovial mask was back in place.

"Of course, Your Majesty," he said with a smile.

* * *

As Elsa lead him off into a side room, Hans was feeling cautiously optimistic. He'd hoped to provide Elsa with a _fait accompli,_ yet he'd always known the chances of that were slim. And Elsa had no rational reason to deny his suit, and no way of suspecting his true goals here in Arendelle.

It was possible, of course, that Elsa had simply formed an irrational dislike of Hans, or that she didn't intend to let her sister marry _anyone_. But even in that case, the situation could still be salvaged. Anna had deferred Hans's proposal because she believed she had the luxury of time, but if it came down to a now-or-never choice, Hans was sure he could get her to elope with him. They'd be back in the Southern Isles and safely married within the month, and Hans could start arranging an "accident" for Elsa.

As the door closed, Elsa moved. Fast as a striking serpent, she struck Hans in the chest with the palm of her hand. There was a flash of blue-white light and Hans felt a cold, stabbing pain in his chest. He staggered back against the door, hunched over and gasping for breath.

After a moment, he managed to look up. Elsa's left hand was still extended, and in front of her splayed fingers there hovered what looked like an intricate snowflake design, written on the empty air in lines of blue-white light. Her right hand was busily manipulating the glittering image, poking at some part of it here, pulling at another, twisting still elsewhere. As Elsa's nimble fingers danced across the snowflake, Hans felt the pain in his chest flare and subside and twist, as though someone had driven a dagger into his heart, and was now pushing and pulling and wiggling it around.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime but couldn't have actually been more than twenty or thirty seconds, Elsa's left hand clinched into a fist. The snowflake design imploded in a single flash of white, and the pain in Hans's chest faded almost to nothing. Almost, but not quite. A tiny needle of cold pain still burned in his chest, like a splinter of the pain he'd felt earlier.

"What…" he gasped, then took a breath and started again. "What did you _do_ to me?"

Elsa lowered her outstretched arm. "I placed a sliver of ice within your heart," she said, voice as emotionless as if she were reading off a list of preparations for the feast. "At the moment, my power holds it in check, but should my influence be removed, it will freeze your heart solid and you will die within seconds. At which point, incidentally, the heat of your body will thaw your heart again, leaving no sign that your death was due to anything more than natural causes."

Hans stared at Elsa in horror, but she continued, still in that impossibly level voice. "Think of it as… a safeguard. You see, I know your heart, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, and it is as cold and dead as my own. I know that you no more love my sister than this sofa does, and that your motives for pursuing her are entirely otherwise."

"Yet, though you do not love her, you have shown you can fake it well enough to fool her, and she already more than half loves you. And you are clever, in the prime of health, and come from a prosperous realm. You could make Anna happy, and you would be useful to me as a prince of the Realm. And as yet, you haven't actually _done_ anything worthy of death."

"So, I offer you a choice. You may, if you desire, remain in Arendelle and pursue my sister's affections. If you succeed in winning her hand, then on the day you wed, I shall bind the sliver of ice in your heart to hers. From that day forth, the warmth of her love shall hold the shard of ice in check. But should she die or cease to love you, it will be freed to strike you down."

"Alternately, you may return to the Southern Isles, and make up whatever story you see fit as to why. In that case, or should my sister in the end reject your suit, matters shall remain as they are. As long as my power continues to hold that sliver of ice at bay, you shall live. But should I die, or revoke my protection, so too shall you die."

"And what's to stop me from marching out there right now and telling everyone what you just did to me?" Hans retorted, scrambling desperately for some measure of control.

"What makes you think anyone would believe you?" inquired Elsa blandly. "Nobody even knows I have these powers. My parents kept them secret since they first manifested. If you go out there and tell the world that I am a sorceress and put you under a curse, they'll think that you have rather abruptly lost your wits."

"And even supposing you did manage to get them to believe you, how exactly would that help _you_? If I die, so do you. And if I don't die, I can give the ice in your heart free rein, and you die."

It had been a long time since Hans had felt this helpless, this terrified. But as he met Elsa's pitiless gaze, he knew that he was defeated. She held him in the palm of her hand, hers to crush or spare at her whim. The thought briefly crossed his mind that she might be bluffing, but he dismissed the idea of calling it instantly. She clearly had magic of some sort, and he wasn't prepared to gamble that she'd exaggerated its capacity or her willingness to use it. Not when the stake was his life.

"Well, Prince Hans?" said Elsa. "What's it to be?"


End file.
